Power generation enhancement and CO2 emission reduction of a biomass powered gas turbine via hydrogen injection and wind energy incorporation

A novel configuration of hybrid wind/biomass energy driven power generation plant is developed and investigated, in which hydrogen is injected into reheat stage of a biomass-fed gas turbine for power generation enhancement and CO2 emission reduction. To provide green hydrogen for this purpose, the wind energy is supposed to be employed for electricity production to run a water electrolyzer. Such a hybrid integration of biomass and wind energies will mitigate the biomass shortage and noncontinuous availability of wind energy. Thermodynamic models are implemented to assess feasibility of proposed hybrid plant based on first and second laws. In addition to thermodynamic investigation, economic and environmental evaluations are also carried out. After a parametric appraisal to determine the impact of design variables, single- and two-objective optimizations were conducted to minimize CO2 emission index and LCOE. The optimization results revealed that, any change in design conditions for reducing the CO2emission will cause in increment of LCOE. It is found that, under final optimum point, developed hybrid power plant attains 0.601kg/kWh and 64.25$/MWh, CO2 emission and LCOE, respectively, while the exergy efficiency is calculated to be 39.53%. Also, if the plant is optimized based on single objectives, the lowest values of 63.53$/kWh and 0.590kg/kWh would be achieved for LCOE and CO2 emission, respectively. In addition, the economic analysis in component level indicated that the wind turbine and electrolyzer units have the largest cost rates, respectively as 24.2% and 21.7% of the overall system cost rate.